When we were 19, my best friend and I promised that if we were both single at 60, we’d find each other — I turned 60 last Tuesday, and my old landline rang.

took that card to the postbox at the end of Mill Lane, and I posted it to the address on the front.

Which is my mother’s house. Which is where I live.

It came back to me on the Tuesday, forty years late, with a 1986 stamp and a 2026 postmark on top of it, and I signed for it myself at my own front door.

I do not entirely know why I did that. Sam thinks it is the maddest thing he has ever heard and he laughed for about a minute, which was the first time either of us had laughed since the Saturday.

The nearest I can get is this.